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dark
emotional
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
A book friend of mine no longer reads plot synopses after being burned too many times by a summary that misrepresented the contents of the book. After this, I am really feeling their logic because my enjoyment of the book was hampered as I struggled a lot between what I thought this book was about and what it really was.
I thought this was a novel about both "child" and "adult" fears that used werewolves as a metaphor for abusive fathers, and that is not the novel I read. I haven't been thrown so much for a loop in a long time. I felt like every time I thought I knew what kind of book I was reading, it changed its skin again into something even more bizarre and horrifying. I felt like I was in a car speeding down the wrong side of the highway pretty much the whole time. It's like a Magnus Archives episode on LDS. I keep trying to draw comparisons to other books (thematically they have nothing in common but there's some surface-level comparisons to be made to Chuck Tingle's Bury Your Gays), but the work I keep coming back to is a Dean Koontz book I read in high school - Cold Fire. I was not surprised to see Dean Koontz name dropped in the Acknowledgements, along with Stephen King. This feels like a concept King would come up with through the haze of cocaine. If you read a lot of horror/thrillers in the 80's and 90's, I think you'd love this.
I don't want to spoil too much about this book because I think this roller coaster might be best experienced blind, but around the 1/3rd mark it revealed to be a completely different genre than I was expecting. There is so much gore and body horror. Mary: An Awakening of Terror is also canon to this world's universe?! This book itself was a shapeshifter constantly on the run, and I've yet to really get my hands around it. Go in with no expectations and buckle up for the ride!
(I know it's a maybe a weird thing to get a kick out of, but... after hearing him appear so many times on the show, I kind of wondered if Neil McRobert and Nat Cassidy were actually friends. And then a character in this book needs an alias on the spot and chooses the name Neil MacRobert, so I would say yes and that was really cool!)
I thought this was a novel about both "child" and "adult" fears that used werewolves as a metaphor for abusive fathers, and that is not the novel I read. I haven't been thrown so much for a loop in a long time. I felt like every time I thought I knew what kind of book I was reading, it changed its skin again into something even more bizarre and horrifying. I felt like I was in a car speeding down the wrong side of the highway pretty much the whole time. It's like a Magnus Archives episode on LDS. I keep trying to draw comparisons to other books (thematically they have nothing in common but there's some surface-level comparisons to be made to Chuck Tingle's Bury Your Gays), but the work I keep coming back to is a Dean Koontz book I read in high school - Cold Fire. I was not surprised to see Dean Koontz name dropped in the Acknowledgements, along with Stephen King. This feels like a concept King would come up with through the haze of cocaine. If you read a lot of horror/thrillers in the 80's and 90's, I think you'd love this.
I don't want to spoil too much about this book because I think this roller coaster might be best experienced blind, but around the 1/3rd mark it revealed to be a completely different genre than I was expecting. There is so much gore and body horror. Mary: An Awakening of Terror is also canon to this world's universe?! This book itself was a shapeshifter constantly on the run, and I've yet to really get my hands around it. Go in with no expectations and buckle up for the ride!
(I know it's a maybe a weird thing to get a kick out of, but... after hearing him appear so many times on the show, I kind of wondered if Neil McRobert and Nat Cassidy were actually friends. And then a character in this book needs an alias on the spot and chooses the name Neil MacRobert, so I would say yes and that was really cool!)
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Stalking, Death of parent, Murder, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Alcoholism, Cancer, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Alcohol
Minor: Suicidal thoughts, Vomit
infection/disease, eye trauma
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Gore, Blood, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Alcoholism, Body horror, Gun violence, Alcohol
Minor: Suicidal thoughts, Vomit, Stalking
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Death, Gore, Violence
Moderate: Child abuse, Child death, Blood, Injury/Injury detail
adventurous
dark
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Physical abuse, Violence, Grief, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Murder, Abandonment, Injury/Injury detail
adventurous
dark
emotional
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcoholism, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Cursing, Death, Blood
Minor: Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Violence, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Injury/Injury detail
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Death, Gore, Violence
Moderate: Gun violence, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Abandonment
challenging
dark
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gore, Violence, Grief, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Child abuse, Death of parent
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Gore
Moderate: Alcoholism, Child abuse, Child death, Gun violence, Blood, Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Medical content, Mass/school shootings
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
What an exquisite, unexpected journey of a novel. I thought I knew what I was in for, but I have never been so delighted and terrified to be dead wrong. It is astonishing how the author manages to rock us back and forth between intimate, all-too-human interactions and the unrelenting violence that explodes across the page. Wildly imaginative. Horrifying. Utterly heartbreaking.
As with all Nat Cassidy books, do not skip the forward and afterword - especially if you are listening to the outstanding audiobook version of this novel.
It’s rare for me to re-read books, but as with some of my favorite Stephen King novels over the years, I know that I will revisit this one again and again.
As with all Nat Cassidy books, do not skip the forward and afterword - especially if you are listening to the outstanding audiobook version of this novel.
It’s rare for me to re-read books, but as with some of my favorite Stephen King novels over the years, I know that I will revisit this one again and again.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Violence, Blood, Murder
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
When The Wolf Comes Homes is one of the most poignant, thought-provoking and creatively ambitious novels that I’ve read. It’s a gory ride, with tender moments, heartbreaking events and a truly madcap scene that tickled my imagination.
What one might assume is a typical werewolf story is truly turned on its head, though the theme of parents being shapeshifters is very apt. It focuses upon fear-it’s very nature and how it affects us and other people, how it changes us and also upon the complex relationships between parents and children.
Jess is a struggling actress who works in a diner and has an unexpected encounter with a five-year-old boy, before her life is upended in the worst ways imaginable. Jess is very relatable, a young woman with flaws, dealing with a situation that she isn’t prepared for and trying her best to ensure that she and her young charge survive.
What initially seems like an effort to escape a monstrous creature becomes something more, as Jess and the boy encounter death and revelations that leave them changed. Jess’ relationship with the boy is a mirror and a contrast to her own relationship with her recently-deceased and estranged father; both of them unsure of what they were doing and yet only one of them able to rise to the challenge presented to them.
Yet even when trying to do the right thing for a child, the wrong choices can still be made and the consequences of the best intentions are no less shattering.
When The Wolf Comes Home does not wrap everything up with a neat little bow and I sat for a few days after reading it, contemplating the ending. The Afterward is also a beautiful glimpse into the author’s life and inspiration for the novel .
The audiobook narration by Helen Laser is amazing. She does such a wonderful job with not only Jess’ voice-capturing the “trying so hard to hold it all together amidst complete chaos” nuances along with the utterly terrified reactions and deep grief-but also in making the boy come across as realistic as she can, as opposed to someone just trying to sound like a child.
The other characters she voiced were also great and Jess’ mother Cookie was a standout. The brief and additional narration was well done and added depth to a particular scene.
Thank you to Macmillan Audio for providing access to this audiobook. All opinions expressed are solely my own.
What one might assume is a typical werewolf story is truly turned on its head, though the theme of parents being shapeshifters is very apt. It focuses upon fear-it’s very nature and how it affects us and other people, how it changes us and also upon the complex relationships between parents and children.
Jess is a struggling actress who works in a diner and has an unexpected encounter with a five-year-old boy, before her life is upended in the worst ways imaginable. Jess is very relatable, a young woman with flaws, dealing with a situation that she isn’t prepared for and trying her best to ensure that she and her young charge survive.
What initially seems like an effort to escape a monstrous creature becomes something more, as Jess and the boy encounter death and revelations that leave them changed. Jess’ relationship with the boy is a mirror and a contrast to her own relationship with her recently-deceased and estranged father; both of them unsure of what they were doing and yet only one of them able to rise to the challenge presented to them.
Yet even when trying to do the right thing for a child, the wrong choices can still be made and the consequences of the best intentions are no less shattering.
When The Wolf Comes Home does not wrap everything up with a neat little bow and I sat for a few days after reading it, contemplating the ending. The Afterward is also a beautiful glimpse into the author’s life and inspiration for the novel .
The audiobook narration by Helen Laser is amazing. She does such a wonderful job with not only Jess’ voice-capturing the “trying so hard to hold it all together amidst complete chaos” nuances along with the utterly terrified reactions and deep grief-but also in making the boy come across as realistic as she can, as opposed to someone just trying to sound like a child.
The other characters she voiced were also great and Jess’ mother Cookie was a standout. The brief and additional narration was well done and added depth to a particular scene.
Thank you to Macmillan Audio for providing access to this audiobook. All opinions expressed are solely my own.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Violence
Moderate: Child abuse, Abandonment